Rockford teachers may see 'serious slicing'

Cathy Bayer

Saturday

Feb 26, 2011 at 12:01 AMFeb 26, 2011 at 10:21 AM

ROCKFORD — The Rockford School District will push its teachers to freeze the most generous component of their salaries and pay more for health and retirement benefits when contract talks begin in the coming weeks.

ROCKFORD — The Rockford School District will push its teachers to freeze the most generous component of their salaries and pay more for health and retirement benefits when contract talks begin in the coming weeks.

Across Illinois, it’s the same story.

The state faces a $13 billion deficit and owes millions of dollars in delinquent aid to school districts.

Superintendents, in turn, are offering no or minimal pay hikes to union employees, said Peter Feuille, professor in the University of Illinois School of Labor and Employment Relations. And the days of school employees contributing nothing to their health insurance and pension plans are numbered, if not gone, he said.

“The changes are in the direction of having employees share more in the total cost of their employment,” Feuille said.

A Rockford teacher’s take-home pay doesn’t reflect the true cost to taxpayers because the district pays his or her pension contributions.

This year, Rockford teachers accepted a freeze in their base pay, but many teachers still received pay hikes.

Under normal circumstances, most teachers receive an annual base salary increase in addition to “step” increases for longevity and “lane” increases for enhancing their education.

Superintendent LaVonne Sheffield and a special budget advisory committee recommended changing the way teacher salaries and benefits are doled out to slash spending.

The committee recommended having employees pay more for their health care, freezing lane and step pay increases for teachers and requiring all staff to contribute to their pension plans. The full package of labor concessions, if union employees agree to them, would save $11.6 million.

If spending levels don’t change, the district faces a $50 million budget shortfall in fiscal 2012, which begins July 1. The teachers union believes the crisis is not as dire. An independent financial review will be released Monday.

Pension benefit
The Rockford teachers union successfully bargained more than a dozen years ago to have the district cover teachers’ pension contributions, said Karen Bieschke, vice president of the Rockford Education Association.

There were lean years when the district couldn’t afford to offer teachers much of a pay raise. Instead, district officials offered to pay part of teachers’ pension contributions. Over time, the district agreed to pay more and more of that amount. Today it pays the entire tab.

The result is what Bieschke calls a tax shelter for teachers. The extra compensation never reaches teachers’ pockets, so they don’t have to pay taxes on it.

“That’s how we could bargain the pension and say this was a good thing to take instead of a raise,” Bieschke said.

Today, each time the state requires an increase in pension contributions, the REA bargains to have the district pay the full amount.

But this year, Bieschke said she doesn’t know what to expect. Contract talks haven’t begun. Teachers are filling out questionnaires to let their union leaders know how they rank the importance of pay, benefits and working conditions.

At recent School Board meetings, board member Jude Makulec has referred to the teachers’ benefits package as a “Cadillac” deal.

“It should be like the Jaguar. It doesn’t exist like that anywhere else. And it’s high-end and costly,” she said.

Salaries and benefits make up $306 million of the district’s $404 million budget, and $214 million of that goes to the REA alone. Certified administrators — like principals and assistant principals — make up the next biggest piece of the salary and benefit pie, with $19.8 million.

Statewide trend
Rockford isn’t alone. Teachers unions across the state won’t receive the raises they used to, said Ken Swanson, president of the Illinois Education Association.

“They have to make a decision based on what the truth is and what the realities are around their local economic circumstances,” Swanson said.

Drops in property tax revenue and slow or missing payments from the state are causing some districts to scramble for the next fiscal year.

Public employers are trying to play it safe, because they need to have enough money on hand to operate their business and issue paychecks to their employees.

“It’s really hard to persuade the supermarket manager to take an IOU as payment for a couple week’s groceries,” Feuille said.

Most of the state’s public employees are in the same boat, and officials are looking to cut for the next fiscal year.

“The real question is, would the unions insist on raises to the point that they’d be willing to go on strike if the employers refuse?” he said. “People ask for things all the time that they have a pretty good sense going in they’re not going to get.”

Reach staff writer Cathy Bayer at cbayer@rrstar.com or 815-987-1395.

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